One Dead, One Injured Outside North Tulsa Apartment

Tulsa Police are investigating a homicide in the 600 block of East Newton Tuesday. They say one person is dead and another injured.

Tuesday, March 3rd 2015, 2:39 pm

By: News On 6

One Dead, One Injured Outside North Tulsa Apartment

Tulsa Police are investigating a homicide at Jordan Plaza Senior Housing community in the 600 block of East Newton. That's near Greenwood Avenue and East Pine.

Police say a 26-year-old man is dead and a 50-year-old injured.

Captain Steve Odom of the Tulsa Police Department said officers were called to the scene initially to investigate what they thought was someone who'd passed away of natural causes.

"When officers arrived, they found what appeared to be - clearly - a crime scene inside," he said. "We're looking at this to see if it was potentially a robbery involved."

Police said the person who was injured was in a wheelchair and was beaten. According to Odom, he may have been drinking and wasn't able to tell police much. The man seemed to be confused, he said.

EMSA took the injured man to the hospital in serious condition with a gunshot wound, according to police.

Odom wasn't sure how the other man was killed. There was evidence of gun shots inside the residence, but they're not sure if the victim was shot or assaulted.

"It appears this happened quite a bit earlier, and it was just reported to us now," he said. "Sometimes when people are severely injured and/or intoxicated and can't really function, it's not unusual for us to get called hours later."

Odom said it was still early in the investigation, and they will be looking at the evidence and contacting neighbors to see if they can find out what happened.

People who live here were surprised to see crime scene tape up in their community. The murder too place just down the street from Carver Middle School.

"We never had this type of problem happening, so it's just, it's really rare," said neighbor Dan Bitson.

"You can see we've got a lot of staring going on because everybody wants to know what's happening because we normally don't have nothing like this happen over here."

A priest at nearby St. Monica Catholic Church said it's a quiet place where many elderly people live.

"It's disheartening, but at the same time, you know, everybody's really working together to really pull together to support each other during this time of need," said Father Jim Caldwell.

Police do not have any witnesses or suspects at this time.

Detectives say the two men could be roommates, but they're not sure.